@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_BrianWheeler @Wrobel et all.

With all the drama in the past few days, many of us would like to get an official word on what the rules of Cyrodiil actually are - or at least your opinions on these matters and if any action will be taken officially.

Regarding Gap Closers:
When I came back to the game after a long hiatus and learned that you decided using a gap closer across non-contiguous ground was "an exploit", we had a rather lengthy debate on the topic. I still believe that pointing my mouse at a target, and hitting the number 1 on my keyboard (where I slot my gap closer when using one) can not possibly be an exploit. At the end of the debate, I had to concede that "it is one because we say it is one and we have the power to ban people" could not be debated when the people making such a decision would not engage in conversation. The ability to gap close through walls and doors if timed right, and through some keeps inner side doors if angled towards the guards still exists to this day - obviously a coding issue that has not been corrected and an event that happens at once every raid (unintentionally) to someone in group.

Regarding using third party programs to affect the game:
I missed the big Cheat Engine explosion during my hiatus, and believe that anyone using this application to affect their game play should be permanently banned. What we saw during the CE fiasco is that you (not necessarily you, but probably people you work with who we don't know the names of, and so the "you" refers to "ZOS employees in general") did issue bans though repealed them for many, many people who were proven to have used this program. Today there are still people using the program along with many others including the most common one TriggerX (Gina was provided details of this a while back) which obfuscates its process as a child of another program rendering it harder to detect. The people using these programs have not been banned. While we understand that many of these people bring in money to the company, with hard evidence being supplied in reports with links to videos, the lack of action has fostered an attitude among the player base that "ZOS doesn't care". We know that this is not the case, though something more significant on your part - even if it's communications that you're working on it - would be appreciated. We would also like to know what you need as *proof* that a player is using such a program, so that we the player base can better prepare evidence for you.

Regarding feeding kills for AP:
We know that this happens, and the players on console seem to come across it a lot more often than on PC/NA (being the area I'm more aware of). Long long ago, the official response was something along the lines of, "if players choose to spend their time playing in this manner, then that is their choice". An alternative response from an email support representative quoted the ToS as this possibly being, "any other method of support that is not authorised by ZeniMax". There has been much debate on the wording (and you know by now that I tend to take the legal and more literal view of words in a contract), and the conclusion we've drawn from both these responses and the lack of action to date against players taking these actions is that while it may be against the spirit of the game, it is not in fact against the rules. My suggestion to partially address this challenge is to add a field in the database that keeps track of the last character to kill each other character (target), and while the full AP value for a kill resets after 5 minutes, this value would remain at zero if the person making the killing blow is the same person as last killed the target. This would not stop large tick farming, though other players should be able to disrupt (or at least steal half the ticks) for large death counts among multiple people participating. We would also like to know what information you have available, so that we can better prepare evidence IF this is interpreted on your side as violating the ToS and is something you will take action on.

Regarding trading keeps and/or outposts and/or resources for AP:
In a previous post, I took apart the ToS and gave a legal opinion that such activity does not violate any part of the agreement. The short short version is that if players decide NOT to attack each other, and instead simply attack the NPCs to take (a) flag(s), then that is their choice on how to play the game. This activity is easily disrupted by other players, and while it may not follow the spirit of "fight other players to make AP" there is no logical or reasonable way that we believe you (again the ZOS as a whole you - not the individuals @ named at the start of this post to get your attention) can debate this point. A suggestion to reduce the potential for this (if you indeed want to reduce it) would be to add a per-player timer such that you don't get full AP value from taking a flag for 5 minutes after having taken another one.

Regarding the above point of trading a resource as it applies to BlackBoot Mine:
I admit that I am biased, as some of my friends took part in this for a few hours and I advised them that per the above section it *should* not be considered against the ToS as long as the players did not gain a significant benefit from doing so or disadvantage other players per the ToS line on, "influence or advantage Your use of the Services". My advice was that as long as the players taking part did NOT use the AP gained to become emperor over a player who did not participate, then there is no possibility of a ToS violation, and even then it is a grey area that would be difficult to debate against the player who did take part. As much as I enjoy making him crazy debating for the fun of debating, @Anazasi made some good points in other threads and I suggest you read through them. The short short version is that players who took part in this AP farm did so making the choice not to attack each other per the paragraph above, and if the AP gains were above normal then that is a mistake on *your* part the same as the ones made in past that enabled very, very, very fast XP gains for levelling and CP grinding where *you* corrected the error *you* made, and took no action against players who benefited from such. I challenge anyone to provide an explanation of what is against the Terms of Service here. Many people may not like it, many players may be jealous that they didn't think of it first or that they don't have any friends who want to play with them and chill while trading a flag, but I still don't believe that anyone can reasonably state that this is an "exploit" and that there is any reason for people to be penalised for trading a flag back and forth.

Regarding bugs and taking advantage of them:
There are still a lot of old bugs that have not been corrected, and a few new ones introduced in the latest patch that allow some players to be significantly advantaged over others. Take for example how using certain skills or functions in-game allow a player to be considered "out of combat" for the fraction of a second that the animations are active, and the use of macros to change gear or skills during this period. We understand that some "macros" are considered bad, though technically anyone who uses almost any addon to automate activities can be considered to be using a macro - so this is a very grey area. We would like to know your position on this, and if, should evidence be provided of such, will the team that investigates reports put the effort in to analysing logs of player performance and activities during a specific time window to confirm to your satisfaction that such actions did indeed take place, and if so will there be any action taken against any players? In my opinion, the amount of effort required by said team for each report would not be reasonable, and the tools you use internally would have to be significantly revamped and new ones created to enable such - though from the player perspective, this is a clear case of cheating where it is not really viable for you to respond.

We understand that it is very challenging for you to put together a clear and concise list of rules for Cyrodiil that make sense and are enforceable. A group of us spent a few hours chilling in the Just Chill (guild) manor yesterday discussing this concept (and trying to decide where to put our duelling arena). We are very sure that it will not be easy to put together. We understand that the grand majority of reports about players that your team gets in Cyrodiil are likely accusations of cheating that are unfounded as many players can not understand that other players may be better than them or that they were outplayed, and the resources that have to go into this are enormous. Many of us would be happy to help, though we need your guidance and response in order to do so.

EDIT: ADDED TLDR - Please tell us what the rules are, what can and can't be done and what should and shouldn't be done so that we can react accordingly.